ORIGIN

The pup ate contentedly. Albiet a lot cleaner than his mother. He was quick to lick warm blood off his maw and paws as he ate, even licking the bones clean before nudging them to the hyena. He gave her stupid grins, tail still thrashing happily.

Once finished his meal, he stretched his legs forward and yawned before he curled up to himself, idly licking his shoulder with half-open eyes. "Sleepy," he half-announced before yawning a second time, licking his nose.

He barely managed to murmur a goodnight before Bones fell asleep with a full stomach, snoring away lightly.



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Giggle licked her jaws, burped quietly, then quietly stood and padded over to Bones. She carefully closed her jaws around the loose skin at the scruff of his neck and lifted him--struggling a bit, since she wasn't even half-grown herself--and waddled back to her den, ignoring his half-asleep, protesting whines.

Once she had him safely settled back in among some ferns, she yawned, padded over to drink at the pond, and then quietly made her way back to the bone circle.

Here, she sat. She had to try again, try to spread the fungus more thoroughly so as to be better prepared in the future. Perhaps after a rest, food and water, she would do better. She closed her eyes, letting her mind drift away, feeling her magic well up within her--and she directed this into the fungus, willing it to spread and propagate.

Again, though, the effect was barely noticeable; she pushed, and she pushed, but instead of her power flowing through them like water, it was as if it were stoppered--as if she had to shove water through dirt. Instead of a waterfall, she was making mud.

At length, shaking a little and sighing, she opened her eyes to survey the results.

Well... it's better than it was, but not by much. And it's not enough. Not yet.

Grimly, she resolved to have a rest--and then to try again.

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Roll the bones.

Giggle yawned, stretching as she woke.

She stood and shook out her coat, sending a spray of fungal growth and spores in all directions. When she picked her way to the water holes, though, she was unpleasantly surprised.

The water was half-gone. Giggle pawed at it briefly, sniffed it, then drank, brow furrowing with worry.

It's always dry here, but recently, more than usual. The air's so dry sometimes that my nose hurts. What's going on? The water's always been stale but it's drying out completely...?

This had dire implications, she knew. If the water left, well then, what little life remained in Canis would die. The rats, the lizards, maybe they could survive--but the ferns might die and her fungal garden certainly would. She herself could live in land that was fairly arid, but she needed some water.

It's probably just a drought. I'll try again at growing the fungus, and then I'll ask the bones.

Her decision thus made, she felt better about it at once. Up she trotted, licking her dry nose with her now-wet tongue as she went, picking her way to the side of her bone pile where the hallucinogenic mushrooms now grew.

"Right, Giggs, you can do this," she said quietly to herself. She closed her eyes, inhaled deeply, and focused.

She could feel her magic flowing out, drifting into the mushrooms, infusing them with life--coaxing them to grow...

And grow they did, finally blooming and spreading in a thick brown carpet entirely around--and in places, within--the circle of bones.

The spotted hyena sat satisfied, looking down on her pile and relaxing with a hyena's smile as the magic bled away.

Right. Good.

Then she glanced up at her boulder. It was time to grow the other batch.

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Roll the bones.

The hyena made her way up the path to the boulder which overlooked the pile, then paused, sniffing about.

While the fungus below would only cause hallucinations when "activated' by her magic, these--deliberately placed at the heart of her bone-reading--were far more devastating in their effect. She hadn't practiced with them yet, but she knew that they could strip flesh from bone as violently (though of course nowhere near so quickly) as could a sharp set of teeth and a strong pair of jaws.

She sat before them, reaching out one paw to delicately touch them, then placed it down again. Once more she closed her eyes, and once more, she focused.

Again it worked; clearly her rest had done her well. The mushrooms spread, flourishing, surrounding her little podium neatly.

Good. Now I'll be safe here, or relatively so, if someone decides to attack me again in my own home.

But just how long would Canis remain her home, if the water kept drying up? She had to go and find out, and soon, whether the rest of the cave was remaining so dry--or hope that a visitor would come by with news.

Giggle rested a few moments, and then stood, trotting down to her bone pile. It was time to ask the bones.

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Roll the bones.

Giggle picked through her bones for a moment before spotting a disclike piece of pelvis. She lifted it and trotted off, back down to her den, where she dunked it--and let it soak--in one of the stagnant water pools. In her mind, she was infusing it with water as she watched it, focusing on it--infusing it with the question of 'water?'

Once the porous surface had gone dark grey, she lifted the slightly-heavier, dripping thing and carried it right back up to her boulder--stepping carefully over her new orange flesh-eating fungus as she did so. Then she looked down, eyeing the bone pile, focusing on Canis.

Why has the water gone from the air? Why is it going from the pools? Will it return? What must I do?

She lobbed the bone in a spray of water down toward the pile. It hit, clattering, and in the spinning cascade of ribs and vertebrae and the shapes they made when they came to rest, she saw shapes.

She saw the shapes of ice and hail. She saw the shapes of crystallized existence, unchanging. There is no change. But how could that be? She saw no challenge in the bones, no fight to fight. There was nothing. Yet there was chaos.

For a long time, Giggle pondered this, watching. There was no change in Canis, and yet, there was chaos? There was no fight, to fight? She furrowed her brow, knowing full well that sometimes, the bones' answers were mysterious at best. Sometimes they took interpreting, dreaming, to understand, but--

Unless this is how the caves have always been. How they always will be. Fluctuating, changing, in a natural chaos. Maybe this is just how it is, and things ebb and flow, and there is nothing to be done about it.

Giggle nodded to herself as she stood to go back to her den; something about this answer felt right. But still, she'd bear the drought in mind, and look for answers, and travellers, just in case she had read the bones wrong.

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Roll the bones.

She'd found the rabbit dead, lying beside one of the empty once-pools of water southwest of her den and bone pile. Finding water was harder and harder, and just now, she was parched. The little stagnant pools around her den still provided, but they were shallow and stale, slimy, and she was loathe to lap them all up at once.

The hyena had therefore travelled a bit, hoping to find water elsewhere in Canis; here she'd found the dead rabbit, shrivelled and emaciated.

She pawed it. Would it be good to eat? How had it died? Giggle tilted her head, then lowered it to sniff at the carcass.

Spread us. Grow us. We will whisper you her secrets.

Giggle started, flinching back a bit. She'd had the fungus speak to her many times--often through the bones--but it was in vague images and sensations, never anything so clear as words. But these were words, sharp and clear as glass.

Was she just learning to interpret the fungus? ...More disturbing, was it learning to speak to her?

Either way, she hesitated, and the echoing whispers carried through her mind once more.

Lay us on her. We will grow. We will grant you her secrets.

Giggle stared at the dead rabbit. Had she gone mad...? Eventually she simply obeyed, lowering her head and opening her jaws as if to vomit on the corpse. Instead, fungal spores drifted down, settling in the pale grey fur of its underbelly. As she stepped back, watching, she could see the individual hairs twitching, the tiny caps appearing and swelling.

Horror and fascination thrilled through her all at once.

She waited, watching as the fungus grew and spread, until the rabbit was practically covered with grey and orange-red, a tiny bobbing forest of mushrooms. And she waited as the body began to decompose before her, the scents of rot pervading the small area.

Other than that, however, nothing happened.

"...Is something going to happen?" she finally asked, in a quiet voice, peering down at the rabbit.

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Roll the bones.

The hyena waited, for a time, but nothing happened. She paced around the rabbit; she tried to project her mind into the fungus, feeling out what they were doing, what they sensed. All she received was the quiet intensity of feeding: they were consuming the nutrients from the rabbit. But of secrets, she saw none.

Finally the hyena flopped down, sighing through her nose, watching the rabbit.

...Nothing's happening.

Her thoughts were plain enough. And, to her surprise--freezing her in place--there came a reply. Or her own madness. It was hard to tell.

Too closed. Too closed. Your mind must open.

The decomposition suddenly stopped, with Giggle staring blankly at the dead rabbit covered in fungal fruits.

Am I going mad?

She slowly leaned forward, sniffing at the fungus, nudging them with her nose. Strange. They were speaking to her. Speaking into her mind. Was it just the way her brain was interpreting the information they shared? She wasn't sure.

Eventually the fungus shivered, visibly.

Consume. Consume. Consume.

Giggle slowly stood, eyes widening. The fungus had stopped, as had the rot. She leaned forward, beginning to eat the fungus--the taste of rot filling her mouth--and the meat beneath. The bones crunched in her jaws, the taste of slippery rotten flesh sliding down her throat.

It was food, at least, but it was strange to consume the fungus, too, particularly when it was speaking to her.

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Roll the bones.

She consumed the last of it, gave a slight burp, and then stared down at the place where it had been.

Only scraps of fur remained, pelt that she hadn't consumed. The fungus was gone, and though she could feel it inside her gut, active somehow (perhaps magically?) she hadn't heard any secrets or anything like that.

With a shrug, she turned to pad up to the den.

Find more.

Giggle paused, listening. More? More fungus? ...No, she had a whole garden of that. Her "garden of rot," or "garden of death," as Bevy seemed to think it was. Hmm. More bodies? The hyena turned, looking off west toward the walls, then shrugged and started padding off in that direction. She had the entire bone fortresses she could check, as well. If the fungus wanted her to feed them, then eat them, well, as absolutely crazy as it sounded, she may as well.

She didn't have much else to do, after all. The hyena broke into a slow, loping trot, nose to the ground and ears pricked up for any sound.

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Roll the bones.

A day had passed, and she had rested. Slept.

The buzz that had rattled through her mind after using her magic so much--or trying to, and failing--had faded after sleep. Now she stretched, and yawned. Yes, the drought was bad, but there was still water to be had here and there, and Giggle trotted down to the shallow pools to lap some up. It was warm and stagnant but it was still water, after all.

The hyena was licking her lips of dripping liquid when she spied something glinting a pale, translucent pink. She padded around her water hole, curious, lowering her black snout to sniff at it; it was a bone, a long one, splintered at one end, with a gem still embedded in it. It looked old, and dry.

Should she try it?

What sustenance could mushrooms even get from old, dried bones? Perhaps those mold spores, from the pile down by the water... if she were to dampen this up, first?

Hopeful, and curious, Giggle lifted the bone carefully in her teeth and turned, dropping it into the water. She left it there to soak for a time, before finally fishing about with her jaws and pulling it back out again. The old bone was now dripping, and Giggle pondered this, for a minute.

She lifted it, and carried it at a trot back to her mushroom garden, laying it in among her fungus. She would try to grow the stuff over the bone, and glean whatever memories the ancient dead might have to offer--assuming, that was, that it could even garner any nutrients from something so old and dead.

((tagged for gm))
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Roll the bones.